Online Filesharing Platform Is Making Available To The Public

ECJ C-610/15

The European Court of Justice decided that the making available and the provision of an online file-sharing platform (here "The Pirate Bay") is effectively an act of "making available" of the works in accordance with the copyright directive 2001/29/EC.

The files uploaded by users of the platform for file-sharing reasons are predominantly copyright protected works, the sharing of which the rights holders did not permit the platform suppliers or the users of the platform.

Article 3 section 1 of the EC directive expressly includes in the right of the creator of a work to decide about the communication of his work to the public the right to decide about the making available of the work to the public. The Court found that even though the respective works were uploaded by the users of the online file-sharing platform, the supplier of the platform intentionally played a decisive role in the making available of the works. 

ECJ Holds General Obligation For Telecoms To Retain Data Invalid.

ECJ C- 203 / 15

The European Court of Justice held that EU Member States may not impose a general obligation to retain data on telecommunications companies. According to the ECJ, EU law does not allow a general and indiscriminate retention of all traffic and location data. Member States may, however, adopt legislation providing for the targeted retention of such data as a preventative measure for the purpose of fighting serious crime, provided that such retention is limited to what is strictly necessary. 

This judgment follows the ECJ's judgment in 2014, invalidating the Data Retention Directive on the grounds that it seriously interferes with fundamental rights. Despite this ruling, several Member States believed that they were not prevented from keeping or enacting national data retention laws. This gave rise to two preliminary ruling procedures regarding the national data retention laws of Sweden and the United Kingdom (C-203/15 and C-698/15); both cases which were joined by the ECJ and resulted in the present judgment